Nassim-HeadshotbyGreg Rothstein-2018.jpg — Nassim Abdi

CEO of StoryBolt

Nassim Abdi, Co-Founder and CEO of StoryBolt

Nassim Abdi is an entrepreneur and educator, dedicated to using the medium of documentary film to raise awareness of critical global issues. As the co-founder of StoryBolt, she set out to provide corporate and academic institutions with access to short documentary films from across the world: the platform offers on-demand streaming of over 2,800 short films from 112 countries, tackling subjects including mental health, gender equality, food security, and wartime trauma. Most importantly, StoryBolt connects audiences with the filmmakers themselves, initiating vital conversations through live Q&A sessions.

The key insights which shaped StoryBolt’s business model were drawn from Nassim’s personal experience. Born and raised in Iran, she studied journalism at the University of Tehran and starred in an internationally acclaimed film, Secret Ballot (Sony Pictures, 2001), which won the Special Director's Award and the UNICEF Award at the Venice Film Festival. Shortly after the film’s release, Nassim moved to the US as a graduate student, where she was invited to several Q&A sessions related to the film; at the same time, she was studying educational leadership and went on to do a Ph.D. in International Education Policy at the University of Maryland (UMD). She subsequently pursued a career in higher education, teaching courses on women's studies, alternative education and transnational feminism, at universities including UMD, Purdue University-Fort Wayne and Worcester State University.

Nassim has always been driven by a core belief that education is the most powerful force to change the world. Nonetheless, she realized that she needed to innovate a new method of teaching to help audiences engage with stories outside their experience. As a young teacher, Nassim faced the difficulties of conveying the impact of war to American students. When the class failed to connect with her own experience during the Iran-Iraq war, she tried another tactic: screening a short documentary film and inviting the filmmaker for a Q&A session. The reaction from the students was radically different; from that moment on, Nassim resolved to use film as a tool to foster cultural awareness and empathy.

Together with her co-founders, she gathered a team of dedicated individuals and launched StoryBolt in 2017. As the company enters its next phase of development, Nassim has become a major spokesperson for the use of social documentaries in education: she is an accomplished public speaker, and has presented at conferences and screenings throughout the US. She has been interviewed on public radio (WBEZ), and is a regular speaker at events run by the Comparative and International Education Society. Based in Chicago, she is a key figure in the city’s film and entrepreneurship scene, and she is committed to helping young people to flourish; she serves as a mentor for the city’s Big Brothers Big Sisters initiative, and is a keen supporter of Launch X, Northwestern University’s young entrepreneurs’ program.

StoryBolt started as a resource for academic institutions, but has since expanded to become a powerful tool for corporations to educate and engage their employees. As the CEO of a thriving tech company, Nassim has seen her career take many forms: journalism, acting, teaching, and entrepreneurship. Her vocation, however, remains resolutely the same: to give a voice to underrepresented communities, and to promote radical global change through the power of visual storytelling.